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course.
    Her fingers shook as she swiped the card. The first time through the machine there was no beep or clunk of the door and when she pushed on the handle she found it still firmly locked. Her heart jumped up to her throat. She tried a second time and this time it registered and the familiar clunk sounded.
    She’d been hearing that sound for three weeks now and snarling internally each time. Now it sang to her, a siren song of success. She went straight to the Datacentre within the IT area, swiping the stolen card again at this second locked door. It registered straight away.
    The place was noisy with the roar of fans and the ventilation system, and much colder than the rest of the air conditioned building so she shivered even in her baggy jeans.
    The USB port was her Mecca, the key sliding in sweetly. As the flashing of the LED began she pulled out the keyboard and switched on the monitor. The few seconds it took to warm up and show the brand name were an eternity. She breathed on her fingers to keep them from stiffening in the cold.
    “Come on, come on,” she muttered softly, her leg jiggling a frantic rhythm. Experimenting, she discovered she could pull the keyboard downwards and sideways at an angle so she could hide halfway concealed by the bank of servers. She knelt and started the search to confirm the rootkit’s ownership of the system. “Yes!” she hissed, finding it burrowed in tight, only showing on her specialized search. No observer would find it. It was designed for sophisticated misdirection. The only way it could be stripped out now without her own insider knowledge was to destroy the motherboard. She owned this computer.
    She took a moment more to be sure the subverted computer was networked to all the others. Yes again! Oh, oh thanks be to the universe, it was going to be okay. She was done. The USB drive went back into hiding, the monitor off and the keyboard away and she was out of the IT area in ten heartbeats that pulsed loudly in her ears. She was panting, the adrenaline load almost overwhelming. She thought she might be sick and she willed it sternly away. No time for that now. The swipe card went back to its place under the notebook on Alex’s desk and she found a computer in the developers’ area no one had claimed today and started it up. It was dangerous to check from within the building if anyone was watching the system, but no one had reason to be suspicious. This once – just this once – she would take the chance.
    She logged into the online server and found the Datacentre’s computer had called in as directed. She followed the link straight back, taking over all the computers on the network. She was grinning madly, feeling the heated flush of victory charging through her.
    The library of source code was hers. Was . . .
    She searched again.
    These were the production servers. They must have the entire library on them. It had to be there.
    She searched a third time.
    It wasn’t.
    She pressed a clenched fist to her mouth so she wouldn’t scream aloud in rage and despair.
    Where was it? If not here, where could it possibly be?
    She leaned far back in her chair, her fingers burrowing deep into her hair, twisting the strands in their confining pigtails until her scalp ached. She looked upwards, straight into the Platform Division’s empty offices.
    The empty, locked offices; where all the screens, all the whiteboards faced away from the centre of the building so no one else could see them; where internal blinds could be lowered to block all sight of the rooms.
    She caught a breath. Stood. Went to the stairwell and climbed, taking the steps two at a time. At the top she walked only as far as she go without being seen from the ground floor of the atrium. She craned her neck, scanning . . .
    There. A chain, securing the computer to the floor. And there. Another one.
    She drew a sobbing breath. They were there. They were inside. Chained down computers behind a locked door and – she